Chapter 5

New York is nothing if it isn't darn cold over winter break. It's snowing and icy rain falls down on your cheeks and neither E.J. nor I had anticipated that we would need a lot more clothing if we wanted to not freeze to death, so dreading the rain and cold we decided to stay inside on our first morning in the Big Apple.

"We need something warmer. It's a waste of money coming here if we aren't going to see anything. Is it my imagination or was it warmer last night?" E.J. asks staring out the window to the rain bounding against it.

"You were high as a kite on caffeine and I was tired," I exclaim, laying on the bed and making sums of how much money we can spend in New York, which is stupid since the money should be enough to keep us alive for the next couple of months, even a year or two, depending on how we spend it. "Maybe we should just hop on a plan to California. Somewhere it doesn't bloody snow the whole time."

"We're here. We can just as well try and make the best of it," E.J. exclaims. I hear the hesitation in his voice but then he says; "There's a lot we can do here in the city after we get some warm coats or something. I have some money I brought with me as well. Should be enough."

"I invited you along. It's my treat," I say looking up at E.J. turning around and looking like a lost and cold puppy. He seems to have every article of clothing on him that he brought along with him. "You're really cold aren't you?"

I didn't say anything about him waking up on my chest, and he didn't say anything either. He just pulled away really quickly and I kept my eyes closed even though I almost didn't sleep at all. There's no need for E.J. to know that I know.

"Yeah... I'm actually scared to go outside," E.J. answers.

I walk over to my duffle bag and pull another one of my hoodies out. It would probably be too big for E.J.'s scrawny body, but at least it will keep him warm. I toss it over to him.

"Put this on. Maybe you will be a bit warmer," I say as I walk toward the door. "Now let's go shopping."

"This is way too big for me," E.J. says with a bit of a laugh and I turn around to find him in my hoodie that almost goes down to his knees. He looks so cute, like a little child but I try my best to compose the smile on my face. I didn't realize I was that much bigger built than him, but then again, that hoodie is even too big for me.

"Let's dare the winter snow!" I shout gallantly with my fist raised in the air, once again my best British accent doing all the work.

"Not that funny," E.J. says as he walks past me and punches me on the shoulder.

"I'm gonna get you for that," I say as I start locking the door, leaving E.J. to giggle and run just a little bit ahead of me toward the elevator.

"Only if you can catch me!" he shouts as he darts into the elevator and pushes the bottom for the doors to close.

The last thing I see before the door actually close between us is E.J. sticking out his tongue at me and leaving me to run down two flights of stairs as fast as I can. To no surprise E.J. is already waiting for me when I get there, my breath racing.

"You little shit," I say as I grab him by the arm and pull him into a hug and start squeezing his breath out of him.

"Stop it!" he whines as he struggles to get out of my grip, but one thing playing football has helped over the years is the fact that I can firstly hold on to anything, and I have a little more strength than E.J. who I don't think has played a sport or exercised in his life.

When I finally let him go he is wheezing almost as hard as I am from running down the stairs, but a grin is still plastered on his face.

"You promised me warm clothes," he complains. "You didn't say anything about attempted murder."

"Kinda ruins the surprise when the murderer announces what he's going to do next. We are not some bad horror story. We are more like a lifetime special," I answer as I fall into a walk next to him, nodding my head at the doorman who is shaking his head at our obvious childishness.

The moment we step outside the building I almost wish we hadn't and I sort off wish I had my oversized hoodie on. The air is almost as freezing as when we came into the building, with the only difference that I was so tired the last time we entered that I barely felt the cold at all.

I raise my hand as I approach the end of the sidewalk hoping that a cab will stop immediately, which unfortunately it doesn't. Shiver with my hand in the air and my fingers feeling like they are freezing off at the tips, E.J. moves in next to me and stick him hand out as well. The oversized hoodie's sleeves cover his fingers, sheltering him from the cold.

We stand there in silence as the wind and weather has its way with us until a cab finally pulls up to the curb. We jump into the cab and slam the door closed. I look down to my phone and give the cab driver the address in Brooklyn that I Googled earlier.

"King's Plaza?" E.J. asks.

"Yeah, you've been there?" I reply, rubbing my hands together for a little bit of warmth.

"Not yet, but I know about it. James has a brother that doesn't live to far from there," E.J. says. It's the first time I have ever heard him say his stepfathers name out loud. Sure, I knew the name. His infamous suicide in the hospital was splashed across every single newspaper in the state probably. What made me angry is how most of the articles made him seem like some poor soul with a mental affliction, not saying a word about the fact that he was a A grade pervert and rapist.

"Well... We'll skip him then," I answer. "Or do you want to go some other place? There's a Hot Topic in the Bronx. Might take us a bit to get there depending on the traffic which I have heard is always busy, but seriously... Just say the word."

The fact that we aren't staying far from the Plaza either means that for all we know James' brother could just as well be our next door neighbour. For all we know we could be walking past him the next time we go outside, or we might bump into him at the mall without even knowing him. I want to kick myself for putting E.J. in a place where he will have the one trigger after the other, but then again, I didn't even know that James had a brother.

"No. I would like to actually see him," E.J. breathes, a white mist appearing from his mouth because of the cold.

I try to swallow what he has said, not sure why on earth he would want to see the brother of the man who took his innocence, but he spares me the question when he starts speaking again.

"I just need to know if he knew. If he knew the man his brother really was," E.J. says, turning to me, looking me straight in the eyes. Locking me in place, unable to turn my head. It looks like he is ready to tell me the most important thing he has ever had to tell anyone in his life. "I've never met him, but I know what his name is. His name is Ken. Kendell actually. I know he's a doctor, and that he is younger than James and that when they were very young they had a falling out and never spoke to each other again. He was raping me one night, crying for his brother, and he told me everything. Obviously I will never forget a single word he said."

E.J. sounds bitter, much older than his years, and I am fishing around in the cold air for something to say in reply. I want to tell him that this is a bad idea. That certain things are better left in the past. But when you have gone through what E.J. has gone through it is just like me. There is always a reminder and it is never in the past. It is real and it is now, no matter how much time has gone past. Time might heal most of the bruises and the cuts, but the incisions made on your soul itself never truly heal. Just like it will be there waiting for me every time I see my own reflection, it will always be there every time anyone touches E.J.

"He's not the one to blame..." I finally say, hoping that E.J. will see that there is nobody to blame. I tried to do that for a while. I wanted someone to blame. Granted, the person to blame for what happened to me is still very much alive even if he is behind bars. Maybe seeing him sentenced to jail time made it easier for me to move pass it, but there was a time where I wanted to have more places to put the blame for my face. I wanted to blame my stepdads parents at first. If they maybe weren't trailer trash, and they raised him better, maybe he would not have been the type of asshole he is. In the end however I needed to accept that even if they did a rotten job he was still mixing with people that came from better backgrounds. He saw better ways of life. And it was his choice to do what he did. His, and his alone. Sure, you can blame your parents for a lot of shit, but I think that after your sixteenth birthday you have free will and can make decisions for yourself as well.

"I'm not blaming him. I just want to know," he answers turning away from me and looking out of the cab window to the frosty winter air outside.

"Know what?" I say. It's not like I don't understand at all. But if E.J. ever wants the pain to end he needs to take a step back. Sure it will probably never end, but somehow he needs to move past it at some point. I wish I could move away from mine actually.

"Twelve dollars," the cab driver says as he halts next to the mall, breaking the uncomfortable situation and leaving E.J. owing me an answer.

I take out a twenty and hand it to the cab driver as I step out of the cab, waiting for E.J. to slide over to my side and climb out of the car as well. However, he climbs out on the side of the street and walk around to meet me. For a moment I feel like he might stop, wanting to continue our conversation here in the cold, but he walks past me like he almost doesn't see me toward the mall.

"Wait up!" I shout as I start tracking after him and finally falling in step with him. "Why are you walking so fast?"

"It's cold," he answers. Not really an answer in my opinion, more of an obvious observation.

"Do you want to talk?" I ask. The last thing I want is for E.J. to be mad at me. I want him to smile and laugh and giggle even. I don't want him to be angry and sad, or even depressed.

"Preferably not. It's not like you'd understand."

Before I can stop myself I grab him by the arm and swing him around. I can see his eyes opening wide, the fear edged on his face, remembrance of the past flickering in his stare, but for some reason I don't let go.

"I can't let you do this E.J.," I say. "I can't let you do this to yourself. You know... Thousands of people out there get raped every single day and somehow they learn to live with it. You need to let go at some point. You need to."

I know I am doing everything wrong that I have ever read that you should do in this type of conversation. Still, I can't help what I feel and like my mom always said; I have no fucking filter. I spew everything out before I even have a chance to think it over.

"Yeah Brody! And you know what? There are also hundreds of those kids that kill themselves every single damn day! And there is nothing any of us can do about it!" E.J. shouts at me. A woman walking past us turns around to stare. It's probably an interesting picture. A scrawny guy in a hoodie a million times to big for him, shouting at a tall muscle guy with a phantom mask on.

"I would give anything to trade places with you!" I shout back at him and I immediately regret it.

E.J. pulls his arm free from my grip and spins around. Then he spins back to me and pulls my hoodie over his head and tosses it into my chest. Forgetting that I am supposed to catch, my reflexes probably frozen, I allow it to fall to my feet.

"I don't even know why the fuck I came on this trip with you!" E.J. spits. "I would gladly take your melted face, because you know what? It doesn't make you any less hot. It doesn't make you want to keep everyone away from you. You can still be you without being afraid of everything you see. You can actually still trust people because what happened to you happened once. It's the exception to the rule. I am just another number. Another statistic on a fucking long list of victims that will always stay in a bathtub too long, scrubbing themselves raw. I will always want love and the moment someone touches me, I will be scared that they will hurt me ten times worse than I have ever been hurt before. Your hurt went away Brody. You got justice. The son-of-a-bitch that did that to you will probably never be able to do that to someone else. You had the chance to look him in the eye and tell him to go fuck himself. I never had that. For me it will never be over. I can't even say that I will never be raped again, because out there is more pervs, and worse psychopaths than what James was and all it takes is the wrong place at the wrong time and I could go through everything again. I mean... fuck! What's stopping you from doing something like that to me? You're twice my size. It would be easy to get off using my body as a doll, not giving a shit about the pain it puts me through, the screams, or my tears. You don't know shit about my life so don't pretend that you do!"

E.J. looks at me with so much hate in his eyes that it feels like I will catch fire before he turns around and storms off into the mall, leaving me outside wanting to turn around, search for the Brooklyn Bridge and jump into oblivion.